


Drooling

by IrisPurpurea



Series: Inktober 2018 [6]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Doesn’t Know He’s In Love, Arthur Realizes Something, Clotpole, Fluff, M/M, Merthur - Freeform, Season 3 Finale, The Coming of Arthur: Part 1, The Cup of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 14:25:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17003364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisPurpurea/pseuds/IrisPurpurea
Summary: “Arthur?”“Hm?”“Why... are you staring at me like that?”





	Drooling

**Author's Note:**

> Have you ever just thought of someone for a while and realized that they just mean so much to you?

As the night deepens, it becomes impossible to trace the patterns in the tangled branches of the trees spread above them, so Arthur turns his gaze to Merlin, stretched out beside the fire, sound asleep, his coat folded beneath his head as a pillow. How the man can sleep so readily Arthur doesn’t understand; his own shoulders hold far too much tension to allow him that luxury. Not even Merlin's incessant prattle could distract Arthur from their looming destination, the weight of it sinking further into his stomach the deeper they journeyed into the forest. He can't sleep, not with such a daunting quest hanging over him like that, not when his head feels like it's filled with a swarm of bees.

Arthur smirks to himself, remembering the astounded look on Merlin's face when Arthur suggested that Merlin should sleep for a few hours while he kept watch. Merlin wasn't very useful to begin with, but an exhausted Merlin was even more useless, and Arthur had told him so, though it did nothing to wipe the astonishment off his face. He would say Merlin looked as though Arthur had just hit him round the head, but Arthur hit Merlin round the head far too often for Merlin to be so stunned by it. No, Arthur thinks, amused, Merlin looked as stupefied as if Arthur had just kissed him.

Arthur frowns. Why did his heart just leap like that? It was the fire, springing up suddenly and startling him. Yes, that was it.

He inches closer to the fire so that the warmth bathes his face and arms and draws his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. He watches the even rise and fall of Merlin’s chest; in the silent forest, he can just barely hear Merlin’s breathing underneath the whisper of the fire. Merlin is still and peaceful in sleep, almost unnaturally so, for by day he’s fidgety and jumpy and always stumbling over tables and loose flagstones and his own feet (and Arthur’s, too). Arthur doesn't realize what's different for a moment, but then he sees that the tension Merlin carries by day has left his neck and shoulders, and he’s more relaxed than Arthur’s ever seen him. Merlin is far too tense all the time, Arthur thinks, far too stiff and anxious and harried, even accounting for the onslaught of errands from him and Gaius that Merlin must continuously attend to. He only ever relaxes his shoulders when he’s laughing at Arthur, or when they’re bickering, but in many of their moments together he seems to always be on edge. If Arthur didn’t know Merlin all too well, he’d suspect Merlin of guarding some great and terrible secret.

But it’s an absurd thing to imagine, and Arthur waves the thought away. After all, Arthur’s the one burdened with a grave secret, a secret he suspects he hasn’t guarded quite as closely as his father would have liked him to. A strange sort of quiet seems to have settled over the Forests of Ascetir, as if the whole wood is watching their journey with bated breath. Because they seek the Cup of Life, that fabled treasure of awesome and terrible power, and though he threatened Merlin with swift and unmerciful death should he come to know of their true destination, Arthur rather thought Merlin had known where they were going before they even started. The Cup had brought Leon, Arthur’s best knight and one of his truest friends, back from just beyond the brink of death, and the thought made his father livid, he knows, because magic of that sort is to be despised. And so, his father had sent him to infiltrate Cenred’s territory and take the cup from the Druids, and he’d asked him to do so alone. But, of course, “alone” always includes Merlin.

Merlin shifts slightly in his sleep, turning his face more towards the fire. Alone always includes Merlin, Arthur thinks. It’s odd to consider that he’s been without Merlin for most of his life and yet within months of knowing each other, Arthur couldn’t bear to imagine being without him. It didn’t even cross his mind not to take Merlin, his woefully unskilled manservant, on a mission so dangerous and secretive that Uther wouldn’t entrust it to his best knights. And Merlin, what could Merlin do against bandits and rogues and druids and Cenred’s knights? He'd take a few pathetic swings with his sword before hiding behind a tree somewhere, somehow emerging unscathed once Arthur had finished the fight. But somehow, with Merlin around, Arthur always feels quite secure. It’s as though Merlin’s his good-luck charm of sorts; whatever they’ve faced together, they’ve always made it through. By now it feels wrong to go anywhere without him. Arthur smiles to himself at the memory; Merlin even managed to follow him on his quest to retrieve the trident of the Fisher King. Arthur can't do anything alone, it seems. But maybe that isn't such a bad thing.

Arthur doesn’t understand how Merlin could be so important. No one who’d ever encountered Merlin could really understand that. He left allies and enemies alike confused. But when Merlin was poisoned, even the king admitted his death would be regrettable, even if he refused to let Arthur do anything to stop it. Of course, Arthur had ridden out to save him immediately. He shudders at the memories, of the beasts and the darkness and the wicked sorceress. And then as he climbed through the cave a strange light had come to him, and – it was an absurd thought, but it brought him some comfort anyway – Arthur had felt as though Merlin’s spirit was with him, climbing alongside him. Glancing at Merlin’s spindly arms folded across his chest, Arthur chuckles to himself. The thought of Merlin pulling himself up a sheer cliffside with those arms of his is ridiculous – he’d surely plummet to his death in seconds.

And then the image of Merlin plummeting into that awful chasm upends Arthur’s stomach, and he shivers despite the warmth of the fire and the summer night. Merlin sighs in his sleep and draws his knees closer to his chest.

Arthur doesn't understand how Merlin could be so important, and yet, it feels as though if Merlin were to leave his side, the whole of Camelot would be irrevocably changed. Arthur watches the waning firelight flicker across Merlin's face, suddenly very aware of his own heartbeat. The realization swells in his chest that he doesn't know what he would do, who he would be, without Merlin in his life. He's startled when his eyes begin to sting. He may not understand it, but he knows it, he knows that Merlin is so, so important. It tugs at him, that thought, it whirls in his mind, that Merlin is so important, that he'd give his life for Merlin, that he'd give his kingdom, everything he has, because without Merlin, there would be no kingdom, and that must mean that Merlin is everything to him.

Merlin. Merlin is everything to him. Arthur realizes in the same second that his eyes have not left Merlin for what seems like hours and that he'd like nothing more at this very moment than to brush his thumb along the shadow under Merlin's cheekbone.

"I knew I should've just gone to sleep," Arthur mutters.

Something snaps in the forest around them, a bird wheels into the air, shrieking, and Merlin's eyes fly open. For a moment, they seem to glow a vivid gold, reflecting the fire, which has suddenly sprung to twice its size. In the next instant, they've returned to their brilliant blue. And they're locked with Arthur's own, wide in confusion.

"Arthur."

"Hm?"

"Why… are you staring at me like that?"

Arthur straightens in surprise, Merlin scrambles into a sitting position. Arthur clears his throat, assuming what he hopes is a grave, neutral expression. "Like… Like what?"

Merlin grins, his eyes dancing. "Like you're about to kiss me."

"WHAT?!" Arthur flings a handful of leaves at Merlin's head. He ducks, laughing. "Absolutely - Merlin, you - never say that - you… I was… You were -"

Arthur is very aware that his mouth is hanging open and that none of the words racing through his mind are ones he should let tumble out of his mouth right now. I'm trying to figure out how you could possibly mean so much to me, Merlin. How you could be everything. How I could love you so much. He snaps his mouth shut. The words pull at his heart.

"What? Arthur, what is it?" Merlin frowns at him now, and it takes far more concentration than Arthur thinks it should to keep himself from reaching out to touch a finger to his pursed lips.

"I - you were drooling." Merlin looks aghast, and Arthur's shoulders relax. He hitches the appropriate smirk onto his face. "Yeah, you were drooling… buckets, Merlin, it was frankly quite fascinating," he snorts as Merlin swipes at his face with his sleeve. Just for good measure, he flings another handful of leaves at Merlin's head. Merlin looks properly affronted. Good, Arthur thinks, trying to calm his pounding heart. Back to normal.

"Anyway!" Arthur clears his throat again. "Now that you're awake, Merlin, you can take the rest of the watch! We've got a few hours before dawn, I need to be well-rested." Arthur reaches for the saddle-bag with their winter clothes in it and plants his face into it, turning his back to Merlin. Merlin mutters something under his breath.

"What was that, Merlin?"

"Just calling you a clotpole, sire." That's more like it.

Arthur squeezes his eyes shut.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a series of fics inspired by the Inktober 2018 Prompts. Day 6: Drooling.


End file.
